Posted on 09/26/2015 7:14:32 AM PDT by Theoria
If Western countries want to disprove the dire forecasts of Karl Marx, we must think creatively about how to make the middle class more prosperous and secure
Go back, for a moment, nearly 30 years. In March 1987, Margaret Thatcher visited Mikhail Gorbachev, the reforming leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in Moscow. Sitting in the Kremlin, the two argued for hours. At one point, Mr. Gorbachev accused Mrs. Thatcher of leading the party of the haves and of fooling the people about who really controlled the levers of power. The Iron Lady had an answer: I explained, she wrote in her memoirs, that what I was trying to do was create a society of haves, not a class of them.
In the era of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, those words carried conviction. There was plenty of argument, of course, about whether the means they chose were the best and about the fate of those who got left behind. But even critics reluctantly had to agree about which way history was heading: The society of haves in the West was growing; state socialism was imploding.
Most of the rest of the world was hoping to follow the Wests example. Two and a half years later, the Berlin Wall fell. Almost all the newly emerging ex-Communist regimes sought market freedoms for their people. Back home in the Anglosphere, the spread of ownershipof stocks and homesand the expansion of economic and personal opportunity were the dominant themes of the age. As Mrs. Thatcher bustled around Whitehall urging on her program of popular capitalism, she used to shout: Every earner an owner!
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
'When things go backward in nations accustomed to middle-class stability, people start to ask questions. What is the use of capitalism if its rewards go to the few and its risks are dumped on the many? The rights of property do not seem so enticing if the value of what you own collapses or if that property is trapped by debt. What is so great about globalization if it means that the products and services you offer are undercut by foreign competition and that millions of new people can come to your country, take your jobs and enjoy your welfare benefits?'
Jones: "We can't leave the federal government in the hands of our enemies">
Crony capitalism is not capitalism.
The biggest recent addition to the middle class’s burden is Obamacare.
Wall Street is now little more than a rigged casino for skimming the cream from the top of the U.S. financial infrastructure.
If I was running the show, I’d force Wall Street back into doing nothing but facilitating finance for businesses: I’d outlaw all financial instruments whose sole purpose is gambling, namely I’d outlaw all derivatives, all margin transactions, all naked shorts and longs of any kind, all options, all futures contracts except those where one side is held by an entity that owns the underlying commodity (and the commodity is tangible), and all shorts on anything except stocks of businesses that make something or provide a service.
The odious Uniparty publicly proclaims their desire for reforming this bunch of crooks but are secretly funded by them with the understanding, that wink, wink, nothing will happen but the necessary empty public rhetoric for pandering to the rubes.
(1) Most middle class jobs require only limited or mid-level skills, and they are often repetitive in nature. They are especially vulnerable to new technology.
(2) Massive LEGAL immigration has created a massive oversupply of low skill and mid-level skill workers. Politically, we could have stopped that decades ago. But now that 20 million of those immigrants have become Democrat voters, it's probably impossible to stop.
(3) The Internet, and specifically “price discovery” and “quality comparison.” Our recently acquired ability to instantly communicate with anyone in the world means we can also buy or sell almost anything to anyone in the world. I don't see any practical way to put that “genie” back in the bottle.
(4) Perhaps most important, there are vast differences in human beings. A significant percentage of the American working age population lack the energy, the intellect, and the personal conviction to adapt themselves to a rapidly changing and quite frightening economic reality.
bfl
Also the outsourcing of labor-intensive manufacturing to overseas outfits. There are much fewer good-paying manufacturing jobs that people can get with just a high school education, compared to the golden age after World War II when the USA had little competition. Those days are gone forever.
So you have no issues with adding a FURTHER LAYER of regulation. What you propose is Dodd-Frank on steroids
“So you have no issues with adding a FURTHER LAYER of regulation. What you propose is Dodd-Frank on steroids”
Nope, I’m not proposing any regulations, I’m proposing a simple, outright BAN based on new Congressional legislation.
Over the length of Hillary Clinton’s political career her top five donars have been Citigroup Inc, Goldman Sachs, DLA Piper, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Morgan Stanley.
https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=Career&cid=n00000019
also, the increased taxation......we are being killed with taxes...
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